A Candid Interview with Republican Sam Talarico (Part 2 of 2)

In Part 2 of this interview Sam gives us his thoughts on Democratic chair Kevin Knuth, Mayor Richard and the current mayoral campaign. He also pulls no punches when discussing the Kelty campaign and their campaign finance reports. Once again I've provided a few choice tidbits but I think it's all worth reading (Download Part2 here):

Pruitt: is there really a divide within the party establishment if you will, or those at party headquarters? Is there a really a divide there or is that overblown.

Talarico: I’m not sure divide is that right word because divide implies that there’s half the room in favor of Matt Kelty. I know that there’s just a lot of Republicans that feel strongly that he’s just not the person for the mayoral job...

I like Matt personally, he is a nice guy. I would support him for most legislative type positions, but being the mayor of the 2nd largest city in Indiana is something very different. It’s not a legislative position where you’re one of a hundred; you’re the CEO of this huge entity. And I’m just not convinced he has the background for it. He’s done things in his campaign that make me feel he’s not the person for it...

All I can say is given the transaction as it played out, I can not imagine as a candidate not having come to the conclusion that I needed to report who gave me that loan. Notwithstanding what the form said or anything else, I just can’t imagine me going to my treasurer and saying I just got a loan from Jeff Pruitt for $150,000 but it’s in my account so I’m gonna show it from me. I mean my treasurer would’ve been like “what the heck are you thinking?”

Ouch. When a respected Republican councilman has this little confidence in the party's mayoral candidate - well I think people better start listening...